an occasional view of internal craft and external insanity

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Maine has been good to us, but it's time to come on home to NYC. Work to do now, and we miss the cats.

Ideas started coming for the August month of shows from Gemini CollisionWorks, and have been notated and discussed. At the current moment, the August show plans consist of one full 2-act play, ObJects, another dance-theater/text piece in the Invisible Republic series (the previous ones were about propaganda and advertising, this one will be about marketing/branding), two short pieces on a double bill -- Gone and Antrobus -- and a solo performance (by me, the only thing I'll be acting in this year) of Mac Wellman's Terminal Hip (if I can get the rights). Apart from the Wellman, I'm writing the rest -- Gone is complete, Antrobus is outlined with a tiny bit written (and, unfortunately, currently trapped on the hard drive of a broken computer), and the other two, like Spell and Everything Must Go from 2008, need to be written primarily around the cast in rehearsal. So I have dream casts written out, and will start contacting people to start work when I get back to NYC.

It's a lot, but ideas are now flowing -- Berit and I had a nice Valentine's Day dinner where I laid out what I had to her, and we batted some things back and forth and they became more clear and possible-sounding. I am sure that one point of dispute will continue, about whether or not to use real paint onstage in one show where I'd like to have someone actually painting a wall over the course of the show -- I want it done for real; Berit is bringing up, correctly, every single possible problem, and there are many, in doing it for real, none of which are, as yet dissuading me -- but we have the start of a plan of attack for the year.

A favorite of the many bloggers I read is The Self-Styled Siren, who primarily writes on classic film. She is currently co-sponsoring a blog-a-thon, For the Love of Film (Noir), and you can find the first collection of links to blogs participating HERE. A first interview between The Siren and the great noir scholar Eddie Muller preceded the blog-a-thon HERE.

Now, if you know me or my work, you know about the huge part noir has played in both for a few years now, so I'll be joining in the blogging fun in the next few days by pulling out and revamping some of the writing on noir I've done here (and elsewhere) in the past few years, with a few rewrites and new material.

I should also note that For the Love of Film Noir is being done to raise funds for The Film Noir Foundation towards the preservation of the classic noir The Sound of Fury. Previously, the FNF has preserved Cry Danger and Too Late for Tears, among other works. When I started studying noir, I was able to rent Cry Danger and The Sound of Fury (under the title Try and Get Me!) on VHS tape from Videoport here in Maine. Later, when researching World Gone Wrong up here, I found the store had gotten rid of both great films in a VHS purge, and neither was available anywhere. Too Late for Tears, an average noir with WAY above-average performances from Dan Duryea and Lizabeth Scott, I found in a terrible print on DVD in a Brooklyn library (under the title Killer Bait). The Film Noir Foundation is dedicated to tracking down, restoring, and distributing these and other films in new, beautiful 35mm prints, as well as creating new DVDs. You can see Cry Danger (restored) and Sound of Fury (not) on Netflix Instant now, but there's no preservation like a new fine-grain negative and film prints for these works. The Film Noir Foundation deserves all the support it can get, especially from those of us who regard noir as a major part of film (and Art) of the last century. You can follow the links on The Siren's page (or here in the days coming up) to donate to them.

And, before leaving, here's a Random Ten from the North from the 2,407 tracks in the "prime unheard" list in the iPod:

And here's an embedded playlist of most of the above, or something similar (unless you're seeing this on Facebook), with an extra one to grow on . . .

And while we can't upload the pictures we took here in Maine before we go, we were sent regular photos of our cats from the Fantastic Mr. Enk, who looked after our little beloved monsters while we were up here. Though sometimes the photos made us miss them more, as when Hooker just looks so very sad . . .

Same with Moni . . .

Bryan did once catch them together waking up as he came in . . .

Okay, getting late, and I need to get sleep in before driving over 6.5 hours in the morning . . .

Well, we were GOING to be in Maine at this point, but the weather had other ideas . . .

More of the same, otherwise. Still writing bits and pieces of Objects and trying to find it. Reading library books for inspiration (the big Bernard Shaw play-reading fest is being held off until I'm in Maine, though). Making sure all will be well at The Brick while gone and getting things to the catsitter. Working on memorizing Terminal Hip. Was snowed in enough to have to stock up on supplies and spend a couple of days hunkered down here, with a bit of cabin fever (oddly, this is what we go to Maine for, but I don't get stir-crazy up there when not going out of the house; here, I get antsy).

Not much otherwise -- a great screening of David Finkelstein and Mike Kuchar videos last Sunday, with a huge house and great party afterward at Medicine Show. I'd seen 2 of the 4 videos before, and the other two -- David's adaptation of Shelley and Mike's piece starring David -- were especially outstanding.

I read the biography of the fascinating musician/performer Peter Ivers, which was full of interesting stories and information, and yet kept seeming to fall short of the full story -- there's something odd about a bio about someone who was murdered, and which focuses in no small part on the mystery around his death, that never once mentions the actual method of how he was killed. Not that I want a morbid fixation on it, but it just seems odd by its total absence (though there is almost a feeling that the book was written for the friends who knew and loved him, and who didn't need or want to be reminded of what had happened to him), as does the strange lack of real in-depth discussion of Ivers' few released albums. What is there in the book, however, is engrossing.

I also read a biography of Janis Joplin with wildly varied reactions. The author was good at addressing Joplin in the greater context of female rock/blues vocalists, tells Joplin's story without much of an agenda, and obviously she is to some extent a "fan," but her attitude was very much that of someone who doesn't really know or "get" rock or blues, and her view is mostly about placing Joplin in a societal/academic framework rather than an artistic one. She's very VERY good at carefully delineating how much Joplin's rep both during and after her lifetime has been continually downgraded through sexism, more than I had ever been aware (let alone the patronizing tone, especially from English critics, accorded a female white blues singer, which I did know about), but she doesn't let Janis off the hook for her missteps - in particular trying to move from primarily singing blues, at which she was better than first rate, to soul, at which she was good, but not really top-drawer. In main, the author is great with the subject as a woman and as a career, but never comes close to understanding her voice or music except from the most cold, technical point-of-view.

Also, right at the top of the book, she repeats the most scurrilous, undying false story about Elvis Presley (and an apocryphal racist remark of his) with a footnote saying she believes it, that Elvis never denied it, and trying to drag Greil Marcus into agreeing with her about its truth. The whole thing was debunked by Jet magazine as false in 1957 for chrissakes, including an outright denial from Elvis, and yet the story still lives on, especially in academia, for some reason -- probably because of some kind of snobbery that causes the attitude, as it was expressed to Marcus by a book editor when he tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent some equally untrue and racist words from being put, in print, in the mouth of Sam Phillips, that "in rock and roll, the vulgar is always closest to the truth."

So . . . I was a hair peeved at the book right from the start.

And now, for a better taste, out of 2,475 songs in the "unplayed" playlist in the iPod, a Random Ten for the week:

Away from here too long again. As mentioned last time, it's that slow time of the year where we're researching, thinking, and fishing for ideas about our year to come. So Berit plays games and waits for me to ask questions or make statements in between long stretches of me reading books, writing bits of dialogue that come to mind, or staring into space and trying to find the central, real idea that will coalesce these disparate fragmentary notions dancing around my head into an actual show or shows. When I come out with something, Berit can respond with her take on it and send me off into a more focused realm.

Nothing much has happened yet. I have a list of shows to potentially work on for August -- a new Invisible Republic dance-theatre piece; Gone; Antrobus; Terminal Hip; and Objects (or obJECTS or ObJECTS or (ob)/JECTS or whatever silly way I could try to indicate that the stress should be on the second syllable. I was thinking of working on NECROPOLIS 4: Green River, which is actually written, as well, but it's not feeling like the right year -- I'm trying to do smaller, shorter "chamber" pieces with casts of 1 to 8 or 9 actors, tops, and Green River is a large-cast piece.

I could, and maybe should, be focusing on the shows that are further along in creation, but right now I'm still trying to find the central point of Objects, as that's most interesting to me right now, even though I'm not at all certain what "that" is. I have a giant stack of plays by Bernard Shaw from the library to read as research for this, as somehow that seems important, but I have no idea why.

We'll take all the materials away with us to our little "retreat" up in Maine (and, it appears, another, shorter one in Croton-on-Hudson) in February and walk around and study them more in depth. Ideas seem to come better away from home, for some reason.

Some things do show up here -- now that I keep a notebook by the bed, I'm catching more things I would have missed once. I woke up really early after very little sleep today, and was lying there drifting in and out of a vague dream state, when an eight-line lyric came to me that needed to be sung by a chorus in Objects (and I didn't know there'd be a "chorus" in the show until then), so I quickly wrote it down (I won't repeat it here as it would just seem repetitive, vulgar, and silly without music or staging) before forgetting it. Good. For years I didn't bother with a notebook by the bed for such ideas, thinking that anything good that came to me in the half-dream state where I get my best ideas would come back to me when awake, and I've probably lost half of the good ideas in that stubbornness. Not letting that happen again . . .

The next two days, I'm back in work with David Finkelstein, or rather, tomorrow we work -- more improvisation that he videotapes in front of a green screen so he can create his lovely video art pieces around them -- and Sunday evening, David will be screening three of his videos (one featuring me) and one by the legendary Mike Kuchar. There's info HERE.

Images here from David's Marvelous Discourse, which was created from the same text as, and used in, my production Sacrificial Offerings.

And from the 2,529 songs in the "unheard, but should be heard" playlist in the iPod, a Random Ten for the day . . .

Nice list, and for two weeks in a row I've been able to find a version of the song on YouTube for nine of them, so here they all are in a big embedded playlist (unless you're reading this on Facebook):

And as for new cat photos . . . here's Hooker from last night at the other end of the couch, trying to get my attention:

Here's what happens when Berit picks up Moni, and the little dummy just keeps walking, and winds up on B's back:

And here's what happens when Berit vacates her chair for just a moment to go to the kitchen to get something to drink, seeing this when she gets back:

And here's one from just a short time ago, as Hooker decided he had to sit on my shoulder for a while and help me write this entry . . .

Okay, back to some kind of dreaming . . . and wow, the snow that was covering our back patio when I started writing this has pretty much vanished already!

And a while since I wrote here -- Xmas away, blizzard slowdown and hunker-down, and general lack of things to report kept me away. Xmas was great, the blizzard was lousy, the staying in from the blizzard was actually nice, and the lack of things makes me antsy.

The antsy-ness is leading to writing, a bit at least. I have a shortlist of plays I'd like to do in August, more than I could do, but I'm starting work on all to some extent, expecting some to fall away quickly so I wind up with just the shows I should be doing.

On the list now are Mac Wellman's play Terminal Hip, which I've begun memorizing (it's usually done as a monologue, as I'd do, and it will be the only thing I act in of my shows this year, if I can actually get the complicated 45-minute piece stuck in my head); my own play Gone, which I posted in two parts HERE and HERE, but I'm not sure I can get two actresses able to memorize that complicated one (David Finkelstein thinks it would be no problem, so I guess I'll give it a try); another original I've been working on for a few years called Antrobus, which isn't done (and what I have seems to be stuck on he hard drive of a currently un-boot-up-able computer), but would be on a bill with the also-short Gone; the next in the ongoing NECROPOLIS series, number 4, Green River, which is basically a long-form music video for the stage, following a couple of young fugitives in love across the country; the next Invisible Republic dance-theatre piece, which will be about Product Research and Branding (the previous two being about Propaganda and Advertising, so we're still in the same range); and a new original piece, provisionally titled Objects, which is what I'm mainly working on now.

Again, only four of these, tops, will make it to the stage this year, and, luckily, all of them are fairly small and uncomplicated, cast-wise, as well as being short -- unlike last year, where we found that producing 2 giant shows can kick our asses far more than four small-to-large shows. Each still presents its own problems for me to overcome, mostly as a director, so right now I'm concentrating on the writing of Objects, which, like Spell in 2008, I'll probably finalize writing in rehearsal around the actors. And while I have some dialogue right now, I'm waiting for characters and situations to make themselves known. All I know at this point is that somehow it feels to me like a cross between the plays of Shaw and side one of The Firesign Theatre's How Can You Be In Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All, and I'm not even sure what THAT means. But it's a start.

So that's the work for the moment. More on them soon.

And from the 2,525 songs in the special "not-heard-yet" playlist in the iPod, here's a Random Ten for the Week . . .

Aw, man! Almost reached my goal of a Random ten where I could find all of the songs on YouTube -- that last, obscure Baby Washington cover blew it. Oh, well, here's the full playlist, plus bonus track . . .

Enjoying my new digital SLR recently -- it's a bit better than the point-and-shoot we have, but the main advantage is the ease with which I can manually set f-stop/shutter speed/"film speed," as well as have it automatically bracket every shot I take. Of course, since the snow shots I took, the main focus has been, as always, the cats. Here's Moni enjoying their Christmas Box:

A typical evening at home of Berit, Hooker, Moni and me, computing and watching Big Cat Diary . . .

Hooker enjoying the warmth from below and cool from the side on the windowsill . . .

And Moni walking on me and demanding attention . . .

Okay, I've been writing this off and on for about 14 hours . . . time to finally call it a day and hit the sack . . .

Very little happening in the last three days or so, but a richness about what has happened that contributes to the simmering pot of ideas for work that is gradually congealing into something to be consumed.

More days of hurry-up-and-wait; big spaces between things that suddenly have to happen. And then several things that were supposed to happen went away, leaving me with gaps where even more waiting needed to occur. Now I'm waiting for the car to be serviced (nothing specific or bad, just the regular three-month-checkup) so I can then use it on a bunch of needed errands.

Last night, I went out to judge an evening of short plays for the NYIT Awards. I hope to write about this in the next few days, if there's time -- I'm supposed to keep it a secret about what I'm judging, and I'll do my best, though I'm sure anyone with google-fu would be able to figure out what I saw, but I'm not so much interested in writing about the specific plays I saw in this evening, but what aspects of Theatre, good and bad, I saw in them, and what I learned from the whole experience.

While zoning out occasionally from what I was viewing onstage, or trying to turn it in my mind into a more interesting piece than it was, I had images for an August show to be created. All I know was it involved screen projections of still images of the actors onstage, which in my head were Samantha Mason and Olivia Baseman, with simultaneous shadow plays behind the screens, in an office setting (yet again, always ALWAYS offices or jails, no idea why). Have to (literally) meditate on this further, but something in my head was whispering something about "all women" and Caryl Churchill, so who knows . . .

I'm also back into working on improvisation with David Finkelstein (Lake Ivan Theater Company) -- we met on Sunday and will meet again tomorrow. This past week we didn't do any videotaping (David having moved from primarily doing theatre pieces to creating improvisation on video in front of a green screen, then creating a dense world of audio and video around and based on the improv), as David just wanted to work on the improv technique we call the "Landscape" form with me and Cassie Terman. David led Cassie and I through a number of solo exercises that led to us doing an improvised duet, and one that seemed to be one of the most successful we'd all achieved in the form.

After spending 2009 working in the form David now calls "Lake Ivan Classic" -- what he's been doing for over 20 years now -- we spent all but one of our early 2010 work sessions exploring this new form that David has been finding for some years now. Our videotaping sessions in 2009 have led thus far to the creation of two video pieces by David, Marvelous Discourse - which was also featured in, and formed the text of, my play Sacrificial Offerings - and a newer one, Epistolary Fusillades.

He has completed the soundtrack to a third piece, Invincible City, which he played for me on Sunday, and I was blown away by just the audio of that one (when David finds an improv of ours he wants to turn into a video piece, the first thing he does is get the raw audio track of the improv edited - in the case of this new one, he apparently did NO editing to the original improv, it worked so well - and then create the music score, THEN the dense video overlays, so I get to hear the audio for them many months before the video is completed).

The 2010 Landscape sessions, while fruitful in exploration, were not so much so for the creation of new video pieces, and while David and I and Cassie will continue exploring that form in the next few months (and, judging from Sunday, probably quite well), David and I will be going back to Lake Ivan Classic more often, including tomorrow. So I've been reading up the old notes on that form to get myself back into that headspace after almost a year away from it.

Also, I'll send out invites closer to the date, but here's a first mention -- David will be premiering several video works by himself, including Epistolary Fusillades, and one by Mike Kuchar at a screening in January. Information is HERE

I'll probably finally have something to write on the improv work soon as well. I've begun keeping notebooks again of everything going on, as I once did. Frankly, I was completely grabbed by the concept and form of the Field Notes brand of notebooks -- they got me right in the center of my combo utilitarian/design fetishist hipster soul, with reminders of the print shop I worked in at my grade school, and I bought several packs to use. Their slogan, "I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now," has wound up making a lot of sense to me, as I'm finding that the action of jotting down all my notes is making them all clearer and constantly more present in my head, as they once more often were. It may be, *sigh*, age, but it's definitely true that I'm not keeping as many things juggled in my head & memory as I once did without losing some, and thinking back on the period where I kept notebooks, I don't think I lost as many ideas then.

And keeping notes in the books has made me desire more (and have the ability) to share those notes here. So there'll be more of that soon -- often as just the raw data. Back to what this blog was created for - the presentation of the nuts-and-bolts work of making Art-stuff.

Meanwhile, back in the iPod, here a Random Ten from the 2,522 tracks in the "Brandnew Bag" playlist of songs not yet played on the device:

Androids is over, and was pretty damned successful. Then, the morning after that show closed, and I wasn't acting anymore, I went in to light design Bethlehem or Bust the very funny fight choreography-based retelling of the Three Kings part of the Nativity, a kids' show! (I haven't worked on too many of those)

That show opened on Saturday (I went in to tech it - having done a pre-light the previous day - at 8 am, did a cue-to-cue from 11 am to 1 pm, and it OPENED at 2 pm -- *phew*!) to a VERY happy audience of adults and kids alike, and it looks to be the second show in a row that I've worked on that will sell out most of its performances. Cool.

Tomorrow night, however, I have to go in and actually run the lights for the show, as both of the board ops who will be switching off during the run had unavoidable conflicts come up. Well, there go both of the potential plans I had for tomorrow night . . . and I'm a hair nervous about running it for a house with no practice, but it's a simple show, so there should be no problem. I will be helping out family during the day tomorrow, though, and I'm not fond of having to rush back from Westchester County to run a show in the evening, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

And here's a Random Ten for the week from the 2,533 tracks in an "unheard-as-yet" playlist in the iPod:

Berit kiped a DYMO label-making kit from the "kipple" on the set of Androids, and we spent some time labeling things around the house. This, however, may have been going too far:

Ah, well, off too finally take the air conditioner out of the window, as it's freezing in the bedroom (it hasn't happened yet as all of the props and costumes from the August shows have been piled in front of the AC, and getting to it will be far more difficult than has been worth it -- until today and the COLD). Let's hope I don't make the mess in there even worse...

And late again, but having a nice rest after another weekend of Androids at 3 Legged Dog. It is, for me especially, a fairly easy show, and the whole thing now hums along like a well-oiled machine (usually), but it still somehow seems to take up for time and energy in the day than it should. It's been fun though - nice to act in a show that's getting such good reviews and that the audiences mostly seem to like (very different reactions from audience to audience, still can't gauge how they're going to react from night to night, however I now seem to have at least one sure-fire laugh line that always does what I want it to).

Which of course is also nice when you're consistently selling out a house of close to 100 seats. That makes for a good laugh from the crowd.

I was planning to take lots of behind the scenes shots at the show, but it wound up not quite being so photogenic backstage as I'd thought -- or when it was, there wasn't enough light or time to get a shot. Here's Moira watching Alex and Yvonne during tech:

And our fearless production crew (Berit in foreground) hacking their way through the difficult tech:

Moira appears to be sticking her tongue out at me as she and Trav S.D. wait and wait and wait (patiently) for the chroma-key to be worked out for their "Buster Friendly Show" segment:

And a blurry shot that still suggests how crazy the tech table/crew situation was out in the house as the show was put together, with lights, sound, live music, and projections all trying to be worked out together (as the set continued to be built, up until - and past - show opening).

The other night was the benefit party, and VJ Fuzzy Bastard did some slick video mixing on one of the screens for us:

And just the screens and set:

Only three more shows, Wednesday-Friday, and they're just about sold out. Nice.

Apart from the show, we've been variously watching a circling playlist of about 15-20 old TV shows on Netflix Instant -- Soap, Archer, old SNLs, NewsRadio, Black Adder, the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episodes, etc.; definite TV comfort food -- while also making our way through the BBS Story box set (last night was Five Easy Pieces, which I'd never seen before, and WOW), and also gradually through a Netflix disk/instant chronological playlist of 130 western pictures from 1939 to 1976.

I don't know what the Western-watching is for yet, though I've started making notes of interest and taking down interesting lines of dialogue. A theatre piece might emerge from this. I was just aware that my knowledge of the Modern American Western Movie was less than it should be, and wanted to get to know the genre better. It was INCREDIBLY important for several decades, more than the regard it's held in now would indicate, and I think that understanding certain aspects of America itself, let alone Movies, isn't possible without a knowledge of the genre that most of us born post-its-heyday haven't got.

So we're up to 1947 or so, and about 8 movies in, I think. Actually, the WWII period wasn't all that great for Westerns (as film noir, on the other hand, was being created and thriving) and post-Stagecoach it took a few years for filmmakers to figure out how one actually made a "serious" film in the genre (it seems to have taken Ford's return with My Darling Clementine to get it really started). So we've been sitting through a bunch of "major" films that aren't all that good, but are still valuable to know. Who knows where this will go, if anywhere, but it's an enjoyable study.

And here's a Random Ten for the week from the playlist of 2,519 tracks on the iPod that haven't gotten a spin there yet (actually, there's 10,994 tracks on there that haven't been played yet, but these are the ones I'd actually most like to hear), with links to videos for the songs, or as close as I could get by the artists (same album or period, whatever):

And here's the video playlist of the above (or as close as I could get - and, as always, if you're reading this on Facebook you'll have to click through to the Livejournal to see the embedded videos), with bonus Linton Kwesi Johnson:

And, finally, I do have one new cat picture to share -- Hooker on a pillow that was new at the time (or at least, had newly appeared out of an old prop box -- I think we got it for Hamlet in 2007), but now already has an immense tear from end to end:

Tonight, I schlep on over to The Battle Ranch to watch a runthru of Bethlehem or Bust so I know what I'm doing when I come in Saturday morning to light it for the FightFest right before it opens. This should be fun.

Can't believe this year is almost over -- it's been a long one. Did B and I actually get married only a few months ago, and then do the two biggest shows we've ever produced? Seems like years now . . .

One of those times of great busyness interspersed with periods of waiting is upon me again. This includes my performance in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, where I am onstage for 3 scenes of the 11-scene play, and in fact only "onstage" for one of those (in the other two, I am off to the side of the stage, facing away from the audience into a video camera as my face is projected out on "vidphone" screens for the audience/other actors to see -- and one of those is a quick two lines).

I don't mind; it's an enjoyable show to be around, I like my main scene a lot, and it's something to do, though I feel a bit more distant than I'd like from being TD at The Brick right now -- the Target Margin people have needed my help a few times now, and I've had to handle everything by cel, text, and/or proxy, as problems always seem to come up at The Brick during times when I am stuck on Androids, and not in the downtime around it. Luckily, the Brick problems have been handled fine right now, but not without stress.

On shows like Androids where I will have to spend a lot of time offstage (especially as right now when we are in a long LONG stop/start difficult tech period), I try to find a quiet, dim, solitary location somewhere where I can huddle between working moments and concentrate or relax (or both). As with my own Summer shows this year, the set for Androids is so huge and takes over so much of the space that there is not much in the way of "backstage" - there's space, but if you stay in almost any one place, you're going to be in the way of a projector, a camera, or someone's quick change/quick cross.

I could go to the dressing room for the actors between my scenes, but those scenes are a bit clustered together, and I'd rather not leave the space if I can help it while my performance is in progress (also, the dressing room is bright, white, and not very relaxing). So I've staked out an odd location, lying down on the wooden entrance ramp behind the set by the door to the theatre where the audience will enter. It's a little odd, but I'm used to it and don't care -- I've gotten used to cramming myself in whatever space I can backstage to maintain calm and distance during shows (I've spent the downtime during a few shows in coffinlike spaces below the stage platforms). Though, as often, my desired relaxation/meditative state is mistaken for exhaustion/sleepiness by others in the cast & crew -- it's not, usually, I just prefer quiet around the work as much as I can get it. Which isn't often.

While relaxing backstage, I've been studying Mac Wellman's beautiful monologue Terminal Hip, a "spiritual history of America through the medium of Bad Language," which I am hoping to have memorized and be able to perform for this coming August. If I get a page down every two weeks, I should have it memorized by May, which would be essential if I'm going to try and do the 40-minute-or-so thing as my only acting work onstage this coming year, as I'd like.

This might seem not a major memorizing problem, but Mac's monologue is an abstracted form of English (not at all "gibberish" as one annoying reviewer I found online called it), so it's almost 20 pages of lines like these (the opening lines, which I'm copying from memory, I think correctly):

Strange the Y all bent up and dented.Blew the who to tragic eightball.Eightball trumpet earwax and so forth.Pure chew, loud thump, and release pin.Grabity gotta nail him too sure.

And so on for 20 pages. So it's a difficult learn. I know what most of it means, at least to me (not literally, but emotionally and through-line-ly), so if I keep that in mind and get the rhythms into my muscle memory it seems to stay in there. I have most of the first page down already. Once we start actually running the show with the proper light cues however I probably won't be able to see to read through most of the show, so I'll just lie down and concentrate on what I already know during those times. So this is a nice quiet meditative thing to do as I lie on my itchy wooden ramp.

And, while I'm not regular enough here to continue to make this a "Friday Random Ten," here's the next in a random-day Random Ten, from the "unheard" playlist on the iPod:

Missed a week's update while working on other matters -- both Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and some personal things. Berit and I now have two large, lovely cabinets in our living room and have to rearrange our whole apartment around them. The apartment needed it anyway (and has needed it for the past 7 years), so it's a good move.

Today I had a good time over at 3 Legged Dog, where Androids is going up, helping out by setting up the sound system -- the show uses 7 wireless mics, so I had to get the mix board, the receivers, and the mics all in order and arranged. Certainly a pleasure to work with the VERY nice equipment at 3LD.

Androids unfortunately does appear to be keeping me away from seeing, at least this week, work from one of my favorite theatre companies FINALLY happening at my home base, The Brick, as Target Margin brings their lab series -- which I got to help make happen at NADA a couple of years in the late '90s -- to the space. This week, it's a play by Kandinsky, next week Mozart, the week after that, Clyde Fitch. Maybe I'll get to the Fitch . . .

And today, a Random Ten from the as-yet-unplayed playlist in the iPod -- now down to only being 6.1 days long!

Stacie Ponder, at the excellent Final Girl blog, asked her readers for their 20 Favorite Horror Films -- apparently thinking she'd wind up with a list of around 50 films, and she'd write a bit about the top 31 this month.

Of course, Ms. Ponder's fine fine superfine readership responded with a total of 732 movies, which she's been listing off and discussing in brief as Halloween approaches.

I sent in my own Top 20. I was actually a bit surprised by what wound up on mine, or more exactly, what didn't wind up there (no Universal classics, for example). Oddly, to look at a list of my favorite films, there seems to be a few "horror" films on there that didn't wind up on my Top 20 Horror Film list . . . there's just some kind of difference when thinking about them as actual horror movies as opposed to as all-around movies.

I wish I had the full list I made up at first, as there were only about 27 movies I would count as "Favorite Horror Films" (I know Bride of Frankenstein and The Tenant were on the list) and I could list them all here, and seeing many of the names that have shown up on Stacie's master list have shown me how many I didn't even think of that could be here, but I'll stick to the list I sent her -- which is indeed pretty much a list of unsurprising classics, but so it goes.

Here's my 20 Favorites, with YouTube videos of their trailers (or in the case of #s 1, 5, and 9, the entire movie) - which you won't see if you're reading this on Facebook, so if you're interested in them - and there's some great trailers here - read it over on LiveJournal:

I missed my normal checkin post yesterday as Berit had commandeered Computer Prima (which IS, after all, HERS) for the day and night, so the Random ten was out. And in any case, rest turned out to be the order of the day following some cleanup of the storage cages downstairs.

And today was the first rehearsal (for me; Berit's been working on it for a few days) of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was a nice start. I don't have the biggest of roles in the show, but it's one I like a lot, so it's a nice gig. Just a little work today, playing a scene where I'll be visible off to the side, but with my back to the audience, facing upstage into a video camera, as my face is projected out for the audience to see while I talk to Deckard on a videophone. So today, I acted to a wall, which is fine by me.

And now that I've been cleaning out the storage cages, I've come across mounds of photos and programs and posters and postcards I forgot I still had. I've posted them to Facebook, but for those who don't see me there, here's a few of my favorites from the old days.

Me in 1992 as director of photography (16mm film!) on an AIDS awareness PSA being done by Gorilla Rep:

The front of the postcard for my production of Mac Wellman's Harm's Way at The House of Candles, February, 1998:

An unused publicity shot of me for one of the Richard Foreman NO STRINGS ATTACHED festivals:

The front of the ForemanFest year two postcard:

A noir scene from my production of Foreman's Café Amerique, ,me with Melanie Martinez, Peter Brown, and Tim Cusack:

The inside of the "fake" inner program for Ten Nights in a Bar-Room -- from the post-civilization theatre company putting on the play within the play (and fighting off the flesh-eating zombies attaching the show and audience):

The flyer for everything going on at NADA in May-June, 1999:

Me and Yuri Lowenthal as the coroner and tailer in Clive Barker's Frankenstein in Love:

Moira Stone in Frankenstein in Love -- I think I was trying to make this a shot in my A L'Heure series of photos:

A publicity shot for a production of Sam Shepard's Action that I never got to do (couldn't afford the rights). Bryan Enk, Christiaan Koop, Wendy Walker and me, mid-2000:

And me being attacked by "the monster" as Douglas Scott Sorenson looks on in horror in the stage adaptation of Edward D. Wood Jr.'s Bride of the Monster in the EdFest:

More than enough for now . . . time to relax for the night with some SoCo & Lime and a blu-ray double bill of Forbidden Planet and the 1980 Flash Gordon.

Well, missed a weekly checkin last Friday . . . Berit and I were away in Maine still, but with so little happening, except for us vegetating and considering the past and future while letting the present amble by for a bit, there seemed to be less cause than usual to check in. Also, while we had two computers with us on the road, Berit had commandeered the better one (which is the one I kinda need to do the Random Ten properly) last Friday, and I was happy to skip the week.

More and more there may be less cause for this blog, especially during the downtime from our own season. When I started it, it seemed needed because all the theatre blogs were very theoretical and high-minded, and I wanted a journal of the practical day-to-day aspects of making theatre, including accounts/thoughts on the things in my life that feed me and make me able to do the work. Now, those theatre blogs that are still around are pretty much just as informal and informational, so I have less to say.

Of course, what I'd like to say most of the time now is more theoretical and high-minded. Ha ha.

But I will keep it all going, as I like the weekly checkin, the Random Ten, the place to post cat pictures, and a place to set some of my thoughts on what I do in public.

I still have thoughts to process on my work this year and put out, both regarding my three pieces, and how they worked and didn't, and my continuing improvisation work with David Finkelstein, which wound up, as I hoped and expected, affecting my acting in my own pieces, and for the better (when I remembered to use the process, and didn't get distracted into my worst actorial habits). I still have to find the right way to put these thoughts in order before I share them. But I will share them.

We also started work on the UTC#61 production of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? last night, which Berit's stage managing/prop designing and I'm acting in. Just a first reading and some text work on two of my scenes -- I'm not in it much, but the part is good, and the show looks to be good too. It will be great to work at 3LD, with all their advanced video projection technology (which is a major part of this show).

In the meantime, here's a Random Ten for this week, from among the 2,688 tracks in the iPod from favorite artists that haven't been played yet . . .

Well, "kind of," as it's always during this time away that we have the ideas/inspiration/research time to consider what we might do for upcoming original theatre work.

As we don't have TV at home, we watch a lot when away, to, as B says, "surf the zeitgeist" and see what is out there. Watching lots of commercials suddenly brings a lot of things into focus (the Watchmen-Ozymandias technique). Commercial-watching right now has become unbearably sad and depressing at times -- I'm reminded on Daniel McKleinfeld's comment about seeing the Carter-era commercials on a bootleg of the Star Wars Holiday Special and the litany of "Please please please buy our American products!" underlying the commercials making him understand why Reagan had to happen. There is palpable fear, despair, anger and entitlement going on in selling stuff right now. Somehow this will all wind up in Invisible Republic #3.

But that's for later -- here, in any case, is the Random Ten for this week . . .

Off and on work at home and at The Brick. As the ClownFest has progressed, there has been a little less each week for B and I to do, and now our work is pretty much over and done, except for the Clown Funeral on Sunday (where, I have just now been told, I am to play the Voice of God). Then, Sunday night, I've agreed to light one of the shows from this festival in its run over at The Kraine, so that'll be a last little job to do before we go off on our 2-week or so vacation in New England.

So the time off and at home has involved research into the history of marketing and branding for Invisible Republic #3, reading The Complete Peanuts, and watching old Thriller episodes for relaxation. Unfortunately, the more I watch Thriller, the less it becomes relaxation fodder and the more I want to do something like that, so I'm getting more ideas that may just be taking me down a dead end that I shouldn't bother following.

I kinda love the idea of trying to put together a modern version of one of those black-and-white 1960s horror anthology shows that I'm such a fan of -- besides Thriller, I think happily of One Step Beyond, The Outer Limits, and of course The Twilight Zone and in a slightly-different but connected way, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. A web series that could be done cheap, in DV, with a gothic air yet modern setting. All in Brooklyn (don't know why, but I like the idea of limiting it to the borough). Maybe call it Avenue X or something like that . . . suggestive of mystery and location but not TOO specific (Gravesend would be too on-the-nose). I'd want to kind of be the "John Newland" of the series, as story editor/showrunner, on-camera-host, occasional actor, and general supervisor (though instead of directing all of them, as Newland did with One Step Beyond, I'd rather DP/edit all of them, to keep them visually and tonally consistent). I've been raiding online archives of PD horror stories, to see if there's anything there that could be usefully adapted to such a project.

The problem with this good idea for a project (and why it may be a dead end) is that a great deal of what interests and fascinates me in the style of these inspirational programs is dependent on the conditions under which they were created, that is, in 35mm black-and-white film on Hollywood backlots, with the kind of control and support that comes from backlot shooting -- as well as original music scores composed by the likes of Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann and performed by talented studio orchestra players. Shooting under more documentary-like conditions on Brooklyn streets and locations, no matter how well-controlled, wouldn't have the same "otherness" that was a big part of the effectiveness of these shows.

On the other hand, I could experiment a little and see if I could find a style that works. After all, I was most inspired towards a project like this by watching Thriller, rather than Zone or Limits, which I've watched over and over for years without any desire to do anything similar. The noirishness of Thriller was the inspirational part.

Zone, despite its frequent darkness, still takes place in an Ordered Universe, where things are basically right and good and the Dark Things are definite aberrations -- very much a part of turn-of-the-60s New Frontier thinking. Limits is basically a neutral, scientific landscape, where things just happen because that's how it works - things just happen. Thriller is a TV extension of the noir world -- a dark, chaotic place where Fate puts its thumb down on the good and bad equally, and violence, fear, and despair are the real state of humanity, bubbling below the surface, and any sense of order is a temporary illusion. This appeals to me as a tone for a modern version of one of these shows. Perhaps it would work in the combo artifice/realistic tone of something like Touch of Evil. I'll have to see what looks right.

Outside of that, I'm also compiling a playlist of songs that suggest dance pieces to me, for potential use in Invisible Republic #3.

Meanwhile, here's the weekly Random Ten from the tracks sitting in the iPod that haven't been played yet (after I remove these 10, and the bonus track, now down to only 2,699 tracks and 6.2 days of listening!):

And here's the video playlist of the above (and for those on Facebook, as always, you have to click through to the original LiveJournal blog to see the videos here):

And here's a playlist of songs that are being considered for Invisible Republic #3. Unfortunately, I could only find live versions of the Yardbirds and Zappa tracks that aren't all that similar to the recordings I'd use (and I couldn't find the Richard Thompson track at all), and I used a live version of the Who track because I like the visuals too much, but here are some possibilities for the show as it stands:

And I'm really really pleased that after being discussed and planned for quite some time, The Brick is finally able to announce The Iranian Theater Festival, next March. This is a Good Thing.

Well, we're about midway through the ClownFest at The Brick, and Berit and I are marking time until it ends so we can go away on our little retreat and figure out our next theatrical moves.

I don't want to get too specific even in my own mind about what they are as yet, as I want to start creating them beginning at the start of next year, with, in most cases, the casts as close collaborators. Getting them too firm in my head will spoil some of the possibilities there.

That said, I'm looking to work on four or five shows over the course of next year. Which ones will happen and when should stay up in the air. I just want to start work in January with several different casts and build gradually and hopefully have some or all ready for the August season.

I'm looking at making a new NECROPOLIS show, probably #4, Green River (a road-picture long-form-music-video for the stage), which has been bubbling around in my head for 7 or 8 years now. A new Invisible Republic piece -- more dance-theatre about 20th-Century stuff. Previously I've done "propaganda" and "advertising" in this series; Berit has suggested marketing/branding for this one, and I'm going with it (this seems close to advertising, but some study shows it isn't, it's its own whole scary discipline). I'd like to finish my long in-process post-civilization play Antrobus and do it, and maybe one more play like Spell, written around the cast and what they suggest to me. And then maybe Fat Guy Fall Down for the FightFest. Maybe.

But ALL of this is still a big optional question mark in my head and the air. Just places to start. Don't know if I'll act in ANY of the shows this year. Maybe just voiceovers. I'd like to stay out of these. Just write/direct/design. That's enough.

And back in the iPod, a Random Ten from the as-yet-unplayed tracks in there as of today:

Not many new cat photos recently, but here's one of Moni. She's in one of her "forts" - this one is the box our printer came in, which I though I had stowed out of reach of cats prior to throwing it away. Moni was able to climb up, and finds the styrofoam a comfy bed, so now I'd feel guilty about removing the thing. It is, however, precariously held in place, so it may eventually fall down anyway (hopefully, not with her in it) and be no longer a safe retreat for the kitty:

Today has mostly been a day off -- a brief trip into the city to pick up some things and back -- and a much appreciated one. Back to all that rest now . . .

Current Mood:apathetic

Current Location:Gravesend

Current Music:Jimi Hendrix Experience - "Third Stone from the Sun" - Are You Experienced?

Berit and I make complaining noises about Clowns and the Fest sometimes, but by now there's no real rancor really behind it, it's just a routine we do. There's nothing any more or less annoying about the clowns coming into The Brick than any other companies during a festival, it's just that the quirks, problems, and annoying things are different from standard theatrical companies, so they sometimes seem to be more prevalent than the problems we're used to. But as Berit said when I was complaining about "the clowns and what they've done now" last night, "And this is different from other companies coming in for a festival how?"

One place where things can be different is in the preview cabarets, which Berit normally handles, technically. We usually do one at the start of each festival, but they run once a week as well during the ClownFest, which really works for this fest -- you get a quick preview of shows you might want to see in the festival, plus some additional acts that only play the cabaret. As many more acts come in from out of town for ClownFest than other fests, it's a good chance for them to promote their show in the brief time they are often here.

Unfortunately for the person running tech for the weekly fest, one place where the clowns can be different from other shows when it comes to the cabaret is that, for whatever reason, you get a higher percentage of artists who can't make it to the scheduled tech time for the cabaret, and then show up a half hour before the show with a list of light and sound cues they need you to do, and a list of very vague directions as to when these need to come. Berit doesn't react well to this, so we decided that I would handle the cabarets this year, as while I don't like it either, I just quietly steam while she gets vocally angry (she always does the cues perfectly anyway, but it's not worth the anger).

I thought I'd have some problems last night, as while we had teched some more complicated pieces in the afternoon, I did indeed have a couple of acts show up with a bunch of moderately complicated cues at the last minute, but as I was getting red and steamy, I discovered that at least I had been given extremely detailed directions to work from, which made everything pretty much fine -- though there was still more fast-paced switching of iPods, disks, and CD player settings during the show than I would have liked. I ran it pretty close to perfectly anyway, but with more angst than I like in running board.

Outside of the clowns, we're getting back into getting our lives back together post-August shows, and with a little more actual work and action than usual for some reason. I think we'll collapse when we finally get away to Maine in October for a bit, but right now the energy that got the shows moving is still present. I think all I wound up needing was two or three nights of actual, good, solid sleep and I was suddenly back to needing to DO stuff, which is not usual for a September.

Tonight we're off to actually see a show outside of The Brick, albeit one by one of the staff with a bunch of Brick regulars, Brandywine Distillery Fire at the Incubator, which I'm expecting to love, as I did in its two earlier workshop incarnations (as Exposition and Denouement). Berit, despite my pushing, didn't come to see either of those earlier shows, and I know she would have loved them, so I just made sure to buy her a ticket for this version and say that we were going and it was paid for already. So, a good show is in the offing for us this evening.

Meanwhile, here's another Random Ten from the 2,733 tracks in the as-yet-unplayed playlist in the iPod (with video links):

Today is opening day for The New York Clown Theatre Festival, 2010 edition, at The Brick. We've previously done full festivals in 2006, '07, and '08, and a mini-Amuse Bouche festival in '09 -- when we realized there wasn't enough new Clown work out there to really make this an annual fest, so we decided to go biennial, but we were committed (for funding purposes) to do one last year.

Berit and I weren't much involved in the first fest, but we were HEAVILY involved in years two and three, and somewhat involved in the smaller one last year. We actually wound up lighting and running board for the lion's share of the shows in '07-'08, but after the HEAVY summer we had, we've pulled back this year to just fulfilling our functions as Tech Directors of The Brick and supervising all of the techs for each show in the fest. So we're on that for the next few weeks, then we get a couple of weeks off to have our regular chill-out time in Maine, then we're back, earlier than I'd like, as we're both now working on Untitled Theatre Co. #61's adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? going up at 3-Legged Dog in November/December (which screws up the Thanksgiving I wanted to have, but oh, well . . .).

So, I've spent the five days since we closed not resting, as I would have liked, but working to get The Brick ready for the Clowns and supervising techs. Most of the August shows are now in the car, though I still have things to shove in there today (the robot legs, breakaway chair tops, and televisor panels from Spacemen from Space). So I'm in a rush right now to finish this, empty some of the car, shower, shave, and rush to The Brick to be ready for the pie fight that opens every year's ClownFest -- as with the '08 Fest, I made up the backing CD of songs that will score the various fights, so we get to see pie fights accompanied by "Kung Fu Fighting," "Yakety Sax," "Crazy Train," "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana, the Vulcan Fight Music from Star Trek, "Adoration of the Earth" from The Rite of Spring, "Beat on the Brat," and many others, ending with the finale of the 1812 Overture. This is always fun. But all time-consuming.

So, no time to consider the summer and the future just yet. We will in a few weeks. Though some ideas about what to do and change for next year are already bubbling.

But, in any case, here's the regular Random Ten out of the "Brandnew Bag" playlist of 2,781 tracks in the iPod that haven't actually been played there yet, with video links where possible:

Well, Spacemen from Space ended on Sunday, and Devils started its last run of four shows last night. Just three more, tonight through Sunday.

And all is well. For all I wrote last time about "mistakes" and so forth, as a friend said to me in an email full of praise for Devils, you wouldn't know it from the front of house, and it's a hell of a show. Well, yes. Just have to remember that. It was such an incredible, stress-filled hassle getting up that I tend to forget that we DID get it up, and rather well (after a shaky opening night).

Everyone seems to be having a good time doing the show now, too, for the most part (it's still incredibly crowded and hot backstage, of course, so that's a real cause for and of complaint). Last night, though, was one of those "we haven't done the show for 5 days" shows, with some real rough edges - slow cues, paraphrased or dropped lines, etc. Nothing that would be hugely noticed from the house, but apparent to us on stage. I had gone in early to set up and work on my performance, and felt pretty good, but got thrown myself by strange lines being thrown at me. At least my fake facial hair stayed on for the most part (the beard began going at one point, but I got offstage and fixed it in time). I think the rest of the weekend will be back up to speed (though I will continue to worry about my fake hair).

Certainly Christian Toth, who jumped into a not-insubstantial role with two days prep last night (and excellently, too), enjoyed himself and the show, not that he got to be a part of it, so probably it's terrific if you didn't go through the worst parts of making it. This happens sometimes.

Oh, Berit and I SO want to leave town for a while when this is all over, but we are stuck here helping run The NY Clown Theater Festival opening later this week and running through the end of the month. Well, we should be here anyway, as there are family matters connected with the last entry that really require our help in NYC for another month at least. But then we won't have much time between the end of Clown and the start of our work on UTC#61's production of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at 3 Legged Dog, which, it turns out, will also keep us from going away during Thanksgiving as we had hoped. {sigh}

Guess it's nice to be getting the work done, but sometimes I wish it was s p a c e d o u t a bit more . . .

And here's this week's Random Ten, from the playlist of 2,816 tracks on the iPod that have never been played on the device (a larger number than last week, as I realized I haven't added anything to the playlist since February, and there were plenty of songs in the category):

Huh, two weeks in a row where the iPod's thrown up some Marva Whitney in the #2 slot (James Brown producing a Bacharach/David song here no less). Here's the video playlist of the above (or as close as I could get -- couldn't get the Slim Gaillard or the exact original Yoko, but the Rolling Stones bootleg track was there, go figure):

Hey, haven't had a cat photo here for a bit, so here's one I just took now -- grainy but sweet picture of Hooker having a nap . . .

I've been absent from here. This year's August shows have been bigger, more tiring, more angst-ridden, more EVERYTHING than usual.

We have only now, with the most-recent performance of each, got them to where they should be, at a minimum, in front of an audience, and I'm feeling okay about the whole season now. But it was pretty hard there for a while.

The shows are indeed huge. Huger than we figured in every way (except light and sound cues, which are on the small side for me, and thank god!). It was apparent that we had made a mistake in continuing with these shows, both of them, as our August season a while back, but unfortunately AFTER we were past the point of no return in being committed to them. So, we were committed to a mistake, and one we couldn't mitigate in any way - to make any of it work, we had to go full-bore on the whole thing.

A big rule we had learned in the last few years was that we SHOULD NOT do a June show in whatever festival The Brick was putting on AND and our usual August season. We had indeed been doing it for a few years, but the problems that came up were never good for us and the shows. So we stopped and had a MUCH easier and happier August. Well, with the Wedding happening in the Too Soon Festival this year for sure, we somehow convinced ourselves that we could handle all this again . . . and we were wrong.

We finished the Wedding-piece to discover that a lot of things we had thought (or rationalized) that we had in place for August weren't actually there, and we wound up spending more time recasting and fixing things than moving forward over July and the beginning of August, to the massive and deserved frustration of the companies of both shows, which just seemed to get bigger and longer and huger and more out of control (the shows, that is, the companies were already pretty big to begin with, and only barely under control).

So now we have two 3-hour-plus shows going on at The Brick (which makes them, with the original production of Harry in Love at The Piano Store, two of the three longest plays I've ever done). I'm far less concerned about the running time than a lot of other people on the shows are, but it's still hard on those of us doing the shows, sure (especially if you're acting in both and also have to deal with all the setup, etc., BELIEVE me).

It's obvious that with each of these shows, there will be people who will love it and people who will hate it, and only a TINY percentage of each of these would have their opinion changed by a shorter run time (in fact of the people who loved Spacemen, I've had a couple tell me they'd have been even happier with a LONGER run time! Ye gods!). There are people already at each performance of each show who have loved the show and others who despised it. So, they are what they are. I'm not ashamed of them at all, though it looked potentially close. I'm sure I'm happier with them than much of the cast on each, who had to go through all the problems caused by Berit's and my mistakes and who still feel down about it, but what's happening for audiences now is pretty much what should be, so while I'd like the casts to be more unified and cheerier, of course, it pales before the experience of the audiences.

We've had some reviews on Spacemen, and I'll link to and deal with those after the run. Interesting what people see or don't see in this show . . . If I cut it by an hour (which would mean eliminating the entire "Lavender Spectre" plot from it), added more songs and took out some of the more cutting satire (which almost no one notices anyway), it would probably be a successful Fringe show . . . but it would also not at all be the show I was interested in making in the first place, which does turn out to be a 3-hour endurance test of comedy (of course, people who like it never bring up the run time unless I mention it first).

So, it's been a hard August, that only now, with three shows left of Spacemen from Space and 5 of Devils seems to be all fine and good and coming together. But I still need to collapse and rest as often and as much as I can between shows.

Next year, we're going back to a very different way of working. Something more like we did with our plays Spell and Everything Must Go. I keep thinking to myself that maybe it's not the best thing for someone who makes beautiful miniature jewelboxes, Faberge eggs and the like, to keep trying to build cathedrals on the same skills and principles. It CAN be done, and even done well, but is it the best use of the skills and talents that are there?

So, fewer cast members, no big sets, lots more movement, lights, sound, and props. More about the figures against the ground than the ground being an equal element. Something like that. I look forward to the different kind of work again.

But this morning, all this seems very very small. For now, with everything else finally feeling somewhat positive and going well, my . . . well, I would say step-grandmother Rita Kabat died this morning at the age of 82.

Rita was my stepmother's mother, and has been in my life as long as any of my other grandmothers, and certainly as actively and constant a presence, so she has always been another grandmother to me, just like all the others. and I loved her just as much.

And she was wonderful. Berit loved her very much, too, and so it's rather gloomy about here today. We were both very unhappy that she was too sick to come to our wedding - we wanted her there so much - and we considered all kinds of ways to try to help her get to one of the later performances (or bring something of it to her). but none of them seemed practical, for her as well as us.

I've eulogized many celebrities I've cared about here, but the more this all (ie; life) goes on the odder I feel about that, and even more doing it for a family member, which suddenly seems unseemly.

In any case, even for what they call a "long illness," that is, one diagnosed with the end seen to be coming, this was a hard one. I've had quite a few family members go over a long period of time, which usually gives you the ability to spend time with them, and, in whatever way, say goodbye or have some kind of "ending" for yourself, but Rita went from diagnosis to gone much faster than I expected or was prepared for, and I haven't been able to process it all yet. The last time I talked to her - she was in the hospital, having had a bad fall - our conversation was mostly based on when we might see each other next, and catching up when that happened. And it never did.

She was wonderful, and sweet, and kind, and always thoughtful and energetic, and a joy to be around. Berit and I miss her, even as we try to keep ourselves upbeat and together for tonight's wild comedy, and the whole weekend of shows to come before we return to Rita on Monday for one more time.

And now, before I go collapse and nap again before tonight's show, a Random Ten from the playlist of 2,771 in the iPod that are from favorite artists, but have never gotten an actual spin . . . with video links, where available . . .

Hey, wow, SO close to finding all of the above tracks in YouTube form! All but one . . . the Roy Buchanan (the version of "After Hours" that came up in my playlist is NOT the one here on video, but an earlier - and, yes, better - single version). But here's the Random Ten+1, pretty much as listed above:

Okay, no more writing, or cats, or anything today -- I STILL have to finish some work on the projections for Spacemen from Space, and then try and nap for a bit.

So, yes, it's less than two weeks until we open Spacemen from Space and just about two weeks until we open Devils. And it's all coming together. Still a lot to do, but the time appears to be there. There will be some serious unpleasant crunch time for Berit and I at the end, probably, but . . . well, it happens.

Spacemen looks to be as funny as I intended, actually probably funnier. At least I'm not nervous about audiences just sitting there confused at it. It is definitely the silliest thing I've ever done, and I mean that in a very good way. Devils is looking fairly epic, but all the pieces we've worked are stitching together OK.

We have most of the set up, and it's big and odd, but I like it a lot. There were more sightline problems than I thought there'd be from the platforms, and I have had to, and will continue to, restage bits to be seen properly, but thus far everything's been improved by the changes, so good on us.

Today, I'm taking time away from the set to work out some more things at home -- more scheduling, lighting plans, so forth -- so I can have a mostly quiet day before the rehearsals tonight and all day Saturday and Sunday. Monday I go in to deal with set and lights, Tuesday I work on my performances all day (I have a big part in Devils and a teeny one in Spacemen), Wednesday is for sound design work, Thursday and Friday for cleanup on any and all of the above. Plus costumes for Devils. By that point, we start trying to run through the shows with as much tech/costumes etc. as possible.

We'll see if this plan actually works and happens . . .

Got an interesting little press mention for Devils on the Time Out New York site HERE (less than an hour after I sent them the press release!). I'm glad for it, though it's kind of exactly what I feared would happen when I put the warning in the press release -- "This play contains nudity, sexuality, extreme violence and torture, among other potentially disturbing elements. Not for children or people of sensitive natures." -- that it would be seen as a coy, "come-hither" publicity angle rather than what it is, an honest warning (considering the number of actors who didn't want to come near the play, even for great parts, for these reasons, I did think I should warn the audience). I mean, I certainly want asses in the seats, but I would rather not those asses be leaving en masse when stuff starts going down midway through Act Two, at the end of Act Two, or a little ways into Act Three (depending on whether their hangup is shit, blasphemy, or torture). Well, maybe at the end of Act Two would be okay . . . there is an intermission there after all.

Yeah, pretty much as I figured going in, if Spacemen is the silliest thing I've ever done, Devils is the heaviest. Though it's not without its own humor. Thankfully, or it'd be unbearable.

Meanwhile, back in the iPod, there's still an immense playlist of songs I have in there that apparently have never been played (quite a few of them, however, are upgrades - new masters or better copies - of songs I've had in there for years and heard many times). So here's a weekly Random Ten from that playlist of 2,903 songs:

Ah, shoot. Just one short of finding all of the exact recordings I'm listening to on YouTube . . . after the more obscure Threepenny and Tuvan throat singing tracks (let alone the Rolling Stones bootleg cover), I thought I was home free. Didn't know a fairly common Pere Ubu track would break the run.

And here's the playlist of all the above (with alternate Ubu track) and a bonus track:

Just looked and discovered I hadn't posted any cat pictures for a while, so here's a bunch of recent ones. First, Hooker in front of our Beatles Rock Band drum kit, matching it nicely.

Hooker & Moni on the windowsill, Moni having a nice stretch:

Hooker playing with a wedding gift (that was for them, not us) that has been very popular of recent with him (Moni had a brief interest in it when it first appeared, mainly in turning it over and gnawing on the base, but then she got more interested in the box it came in):